Labor training system draws global scrutiny
China is instituting a mass labor system in Tibet similar to the one in neighboring Xinjiang, the Jamestown Foundation said, despite intensifying global scrutiny of Beijing’s policies toward ethnic minorities.
Tibet has since last year introduced policies promoting “the systematic, centralized, and large-scale training and transfer of ‘rural surplus laborers’ ” to other parts of Tibet and other regions, the Jamestown Foundation said in a report released
Tuesday. More than half a million laborers went through the program in the first seven months of this year, according to the report, written by Adrian Zenz, a leading researcher into China’s Xinjiang policies.
“The labor transfer policy mandates that pastoralists and farmers are to be subjected to centralized ‘military-style’ vocational training, which aims to reform ‘backward thinking’ and includes training in ‘work discipline,’ law, and the Chinese language,” Zenz said. Training photos from Tibet’s Chamdo region described in the report suggested that the sessions were being supervised by the People’s Armed Police.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a statement to Reuters that forced labor “simply does not exist” in the country, adding that workers participated voluntarily and were properly compensated. “We hope the international community will distinguish right from wrong, respect facts, and not be fooled by lies,” the ministry said.